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<title>The Artist by ThriceDeceased (JMDaniels)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561780">The Artist</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMDaniels/pseuds/ThriceDeceased'>ThriceDeceased (JMDaniels)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Reader Inserts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, Soulmates, The Force Ships It</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:21:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,143</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561780</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMDaniels/pseuds/ThriceDeceased</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Din accepts a bounty for a Force sensitive artist. When he arrives at her small home, he finds her in a studio filled with sketches and paintings of him…without his helmet. Kinda Soulmate AU</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Reader Inserts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>213</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Artist</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I currently don't have any plans to continue this. The majority of my focus regarding Mando goes into planning and writing <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561084/chapters/62027752">Ghost Stories</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“This one?” asked Yukif, holding up a small jar of paint.</p>
<p>She shook her head. “No. I need something darker.”</p>
<p>“So, you need black?”</p>
<p>“The eyes are brown, not black. I just need something a little darker. I haven’t been able to get the level of depth that I want,” she said, frowning at the selection before her. “Black is too harsh for the irises.”</p>
<p>Yukif set the jar back with a huff. “Can’t you just mix the colors you already have? Surely, you have enough to get close to what you’re looking for.”</p>
<p>She sighed. “I’ve tried. Nothing turns out right.”</p>
<p>“This is why you ought to stick to painting beings that exist, rather than faces you’ve only seen in dreams,” he grumbled, earning a small glare from her.</p>
<p>“If I could get this face out of my head, I’d be done with it,” she told him. “But it always pops up, so I feel the need to capture it properly.”</p>
<p>He rolled his eyes as he started walking out of the shop. “Your need to capture it properly has caused us enough trouble.”</p>
<p>She gave him an incredulous look, following close behind. “You’re the one who suggested we make a run at that shipment, not me,” she hissed, voice low.</p>
<p>He shrugged, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I was only trying to help you. No one told me it would all be custom stock for some eccentric painter in the Core.”</p>
<p>She narrowed her eyes at him as they walked. “You’re lucky we’re friends.”</p>
<p>He snorted. “You’re lucky that dream face isn’t hard on the eyes, even if you say you’re not getting it right. You leave your little renderings all over the house.”</p>
<p>“I’ll bring all the canvases back into my studio, you big baby.”</p>
<p>“And the sketches?” he asked, giving her a pointed look.</p>
<p>She tried to look annoyed while hiding a smile. “And the sketches.”</p>
<p>He gave a nod, his own face breaking into a grin.</p>
<p>When they reached their small house, Yukif parted ways with her at the door, saying something about going down to visit the mechanic who was meant to be repairing his little nav droid.</p>
<p>She walked all through the quiet rooms, gathering up the miscellaneous portraits scattered throughout. After they were all carefully leaning against the walls around her, she slumped down onto the stool in front of her current piece. </p>
<p>It was a little more than half finished, the soft sketch lines still visible in a few places. She studied it, loosing a slow exhale as she tried to decide what to do about her ongoing color conundrum. Maybe she could try doing something monochromatic next time.</p>
<p>She rolled open her collection of brushes and got to work.</p>
<p>It might’ve been an hour later, the smell of paint and thinner filling the room as she made small, careful strokes with one of her thinest brushes, determined to get the messy waves of hair right. There was a gentle sweep of <em>something</em> across her nerves and she paused, brush poised over the canvas as she held her breath.</p>
<p>There wasn’t a sound out of the ordinary, but she could feel that <em>something.</em> She looked to the cracked door of her studio, dipping her brush in the thinner before cleaning it quickly and setting it aside. </p>
<p>She rose from her stool slowly, eyes locked on the door as she took a tentative step toward it.</p>
<p>It was probably just Yukif getting back. But why did she <em>feel</em> like this?</p>
<p>The tips of her fingers were just about to curl around the edge of the door when it was suddenly being pushed inward. A blaster appeared, trained on her and she could only stumble back into the room as the armored figure stepped into her studio.</p>
<p>The backs of her legs brushed against her stool and she sank onto it, eyes wide and terrified, heart pounding in her chest as her gaze moved between the blaster and the dark visor of its wielder.</p>
<p>And then, before she could ask why he was there or beg for her life, something about the imposing way that he carried himself <em>faltered.<em></em></em></p>
<p>~*~*~*~</p>
<p>
Din couldn’t tear his eyes away from the unfinished portrait behind her. The portrait of him. <em>His face.</em>
</p>
<p>
It was an unmistakable likeness and he didn’t understand how such a thing was even <em>possible.</em> No one had ever seen his face, not since he was a child. Not as it was now.
</p>
<p>
\He started to breathe a little quicker, pulling his gaze back to the woman sitting in front of him, the bounty he was here for.
</p>
<p>
But that shift in his gaze only made him notice the canvases tilted against the wall off to the side of her easel and he scanned over them. His face adorned every single one.
</p>
<p>
“Are you here to kill me?” asked a quiet voice.
</p>
<p>
His attention snapped back to the woman who was now studying him intently.
</p>
<p>
Chest tight with confusion and shame and horror, he lowered the blaster to indicate the canvases and asked a question of his own, voice rasping through his helmet’s modulator.
</p>
<p><em>“Why?”</em>
</p>
<p>
~*~*~*~
</p>
<p>
She startled at his tone, shrinking back. Glancing at her canvases, she was afraid to look away from him too long for fear that he’d make a move. “I—I don’t know what—”
</p>
<p>
“Those paintings. That <em>face,"</em> he interrupted, his voice too big for the small room. <em>“Why are you painting that face?”</em>
</p>
<p>
She shook her head, face going hot with panic and confusion. “It’s in—I see it in my dreams. I’m just—just trying to get it right,” she said, her own voice wavering.
</p>
<p>
There was a moment when neither of them moved and the room was unnervingly still, that <em>something</em> pressing down on her.
</p>
<p>
And then he was letting his blaster drop, sliding it back into the holster at his hip. He was breathing hard, she could hear it. Almost as if <em>she</em> were the one who’d snuck up on <em>him.</em>
</p>
<p>
“Your dreams,” he said quietly.
</p>
<p>
She simply stared for a moment before realizing that she should probably be nodding. “Yes. Almost every time I close my eyes, I see this face,” she explained, gesturing to the painting still on the easel behind her. 
</p>
<p>
He shifted his weight, helmet tilting to face the collection on the floor before returning to her.
</p>
<p>
She was struck with a sudden possibility. “Do you—do you recognize this face?” she asked cautiously, unable to hide the hopeful curiosity in her eyes.
</p>
<p>
That <em>something</em> seemed to fill the whole room as he nodded and she leaned toward him just a bit, her hands clasping together. There was silence again, like he was coming to a decision. 
</p>
<p>
After a few agonizing seconds, his dark visor settled on her and her breath caught. “It’s mine.”
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Come hangout with me on <a href="https://mikeisthricedeceased.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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